


a thousand revisions

by sarkany



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Harry as Arthur, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Soulbonds, Soulmate AU, harry as a frankly shit arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 16:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8900095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkany/pseuds/sarkany
Summary: Harry sighs. He’ll have to redo this form, and he hates rejection personnel requisitions almost as much as splinters shoved under his toenails. Besides, paperwork will give him something to do tonight. As long as he keeps himself busy, he won’t dwell on—
Harry gets up and opens the door.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mitslits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitslits/gifts).



> Happiest of belated birthdays to mitslits, who asked for an angsty soulmate AU!

Someone knocks on his office door, startling Harry into dropping his pen. He curses as ink splatters across the page, then guiltily glances up at Eggsy’s armchair. Eggsy’s still asleep, thank god, curled around one of his trite paperbacks ( _“The wife is the murderer” “Let me read in peace Harry”_ ).

The knock comes again. Twice within a minute, which is a) annoying and b) means that his guest is unlikely to depart without further noise. Harry dearly hopes this is urgent, because Eggsy needs all the sleep he can get to recuperate from his last mission.

Harry sighs. He’ll have to redo this form, and he hates rejection personnel requisitions almost as much as splinters shoved under his toenails. Besides, paperwork will give him something to do tonight. As long as he keeps himself busy, he won’t dwell on—

Harry gets up and opens the door.

“Hello,” he says stupidly, falling back on a childhood of drills and manners and _third fork to your left_ , because his mind is stupid with not enough sleep, and he can’t fall asleep, can’t let himself dream, because that means he’ll dream about gunshots and Eggsy screaming.

“I’ve got scotch,” Merlin says, as if nothing has changed in these last few years, as if Harry can still count on Merlin to reassure him after bad missions and worse decision.

The same manners propel Harry to the side, letting Merlin enter and settle comfortably into one of the armchairs by the fire. Harry trails after him, only belatedly closing the office door. Now that he looks, Merlin keeps his hands carefully still, a worse tell than fidgeting, and a surefire sign that he was unsure of his welcome.

In the last few years, Harry and Merlin’s friendship had fractured along stress lines. Merlin hadn’t directly opposed Harry taking up Arthur’s mantle, but neither did he endorse it. From such a central department, the lack of endorsement was almost as good as condemning Harry’s reign. However, post V-day _Kingsman_ couldn’t waste any time squabbling over internal politics. Eggsy became Galahad, Galahad became Arthur, and Merlin became something less then friend. Merlin kept his department performing at full efficiency and stayed in his department.

Eggsy isn’t on the couch anymore, but the paperback is placed neatly onto the coffee table. Odd. Eggsy normally left them propped open with the nearest handy knick-knack and abandoned haphazardly on the nearest flat surface. Harry had lost an absurd number of papers, a dagger, and his best tie to those books.

From the attached kitchenette, he hears the click of the kettle turning on and relaxes.  Eggsy was probably making a cup of tea.

Merlin looks at him oddly. “You holding up alright Harry?”

Why wouldn’t he be alright?  Harry frowns, and settles himself into the opposite armchair.

Eggsy returns bearing a lone cup in hand. He looks utterly normal, if tired. His hair is mussed from his nap, and he’s wearing one of his atrocious Christmas sweaters, the kind that light up.

“None for me?” Harry asks lightly. He’s feeling a bit hurt actually, but Eggsy’s eyes flick to his guest, and Harry understands.

Merlin is frowning at the both of them. “Don’t be daft Harry. I’m hardly going to bring scotch to drink by myself.”

Harry blinks at the non sequitur, but he’s determined to make up for his lost manners. “Would you like a cup of tea Merlin?” he asks and is rewarded with Eggsy’s smile.

Merlin is still frowning, but he nods, acquiescing. “Yes, thank you.”

In the kitchenette, the kettle is empty and stone cold.

Harry returns with a pot of tea, two mugs, and small pots of cream and sugar. His hands tremble faintly, rippling the liquid into miniature waves adrift in their containers. Eggsy is sitting Harry’s armchair, reading his book, but when he sees Harry returning, he vacates it quickly and settles onto the couch in an easy motion.

Merlin accepts his mug, but immediately sets it aside. “Harry, about the Portugal mission—”

“We don’t need to discuss the Portugal mission,” Harry interrupts. “Eggsy returned safely, and that’s all that matters.”

Visibly rethinking this new information, Merlin wordlessly opens and closes his mouth. Harry was perhaps a bit harsh, and he knows that the mission was a complete fuck-up, but he can’t bring himself to regret his orders or his current tone.

“You’re right,” Merlin says abruptly. “Why don’t you take some time off. Spend it with, um, Eggsy.” Bizarrely, Merlin stumbles over Eggsy’s name.

Twisting the gold band around his ring finger, Harry nods. The Arthur position had only grown heavier with time, and Harry had felt the same indifference towards humanity that the last Arthur had talked about before he died. He knew he was prone to rash, direct actions, but he had the cool rationality of Merlin and Eggsy’s compassion to steer him back on track.

“I’ll get Roxy and a few of my minions to split your paperwork.” Merlin carefully makes no mention of _her_.

Once the world had settled into normal levels of chaos, Merlin had quietly recruited a brisk, businesslike woman that seemed to know a disconcerting amount of information about how to maximally deploy Harry’s agents. More disconcertingly, the board had turned a blind eye.

They had been brewing a confrontation for months, and Harry can see Merlin braced at the edge of his seat. The fight deflates out of Harry. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have his power pass piecemeal on to his successor.

Harry had dreamt of an apiary. Not as an immediate possibility, just the barest suggestion of a cottage in Sussex and bees, perhaps as the natural respite for a long and fruitful life.  He could see Eggsy swathed in one of the ridiculous beekeeper outfits, golden hair matted with sweat and their bond stretched honey thick between them. Eggsy, limned in sunshine, laughingly chasing JB out of the hives.

That wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

**

Pale moonlight streaks Harry’s bedroom ceiling. A car drives past; it’s headlights briefly illuminates the room with its abrupt glow. Eggsy had decided to sleep in the guest bedroom tonight.

The bed beside Harry was empty and cold, and his bond aches with their separation, first through the two months of the Portugal mission and now by choice.

When Eggsy woke up in medical, he was quietly furious with Harry’s orders. ( _“You shouldn’t have come; you should have let me die. There were_ children _there Harry.”_ ) Harry had no regrets, but the quiet line of Eggsy’s back disappearing into the guest bedroom stung worse than a slap.

When the faintly luminescent hands of his clock point to _3 AM_ , Harry gives up sleep as a futile endeavor and heads to his study. His laptop whirrs gently as it boots up. Outside, night is a palpable presence that beats against the streetlight and pushes the truth against the windowpanes. Harry closes the drapes; the truth was too brilliant, too cruel, too painful to be faced in the soft hush of the witching hour.

Because of an odd combination of masochism and duty, Harry pulls up the last file from Portugal.

_Eggsy’s eyes were ringed deeply with purple, but his smile still carries the same gentle brilliance. When he pushed his lank hair out of his eyes, Harry notices that Eggsy had put on his wedding ring for this transmission. Even at a remove of two weeks, a pulse of possessiveness chased by love shoots through Harry._

_“Hey Arthur,” Galahad said. Eggsy’s smile is for Harry, but now it wavered at the edges with exhaustion. “I think this will be last direct report for a while. I should still be able to make it to the drop points, but direct video is going to be too risky.”_

_Arthur’s voice said, “I trust your judgement on this Agent Galahad.”_

_Galahad nodded and blinked, eyelashes fanning across his cheekbones. “I just want you to know that I love you.”_

_Harry had frozen, the impartiality of Arthur fleeing from the abrupt frission of fear._

_Before Harry could reply, a sudden burst of gunfire shocked Galahad into motion. Ever a credit to his training, Eggsy immediately dropped to the floor, the feed tilting crazily._

_The visual feed terminated, accompanied by a sharp grunt of pain from Eggsy. Harry had bitten through his lip in an effort to keep quiet. Without security footage or any visual cues, Harry would had been more of a hindrance than a help._

_Then. Then, there had been a gunshot. Abruptly close. Eggsy’s scream. Their bond had stretched taunt, then snapped like a bow wound too far._

_Harry had barely managed to mute his voice transmission._

On the recording, Harry could hear himself screaming, barely coherent orders to break cover, retrieve Eggsy—Galahad—his soulmate, wipe Portugal and all that accursed land off the maps.

Harry slams lid of his laptop closed, breathing heavily. When he had first returned from Kentucky, Eggsy hadn’t looked at him for a week. That was before they had consummated and solidified their bond, so all Eggsy knew was that the very beginnings of their bond had suddenly withered and died. He couldn’t have known that Harry had, against all odds, survived.

Harry gropes for their bond and finds it cold, cold, cold. In a sudden panic, he bursts into the guest bedroom and finds Eggsy asleep beneath the covers.

Quietly, Harry tiptoes out and descends the staircase. Opening the door, Harry lets the warmth of the house escape into the night.

Outside, the darkness of the night isn’t as terrible or as dark as it seemed from the safety of his study. It is nothing more than the natural state of things due to the turning of the world. His eyes adjusted, as were their wont, and he could pick out the details of his neighbors’ houses. The cold winds delicate fingers until his body was as chilled as his heart and bed.

Harry is still standing on his doorstep, shivering in his dressing gown, when Merlin arrives.

Behind Merlin, Harry can see one of the _Kingsman_ cabs idling at the curb. Harry doesn’t think about what this means, that Merlin has arrived so quickly, that there are likely bugs planted in his private home, that Merlin doesn’t _trust_ Harry.

At this moment, Harry only cares that his oldest friend is here, showing signs of dressing hastily and smelling faintly of detergent.

Herding Harry back into the living room, Merlin makes a steaming mug of tea that he presses into Harry’s hands.

The tea warms Harry’s fingers, and he takes cautious sips. Chamomile. “I think,” he finally says, “that my bond is broken.”

“Broken is certainly one way to phrase it.” Merlin replies noncommittally.

“Do you think I could fix it?” Harry asks in a sudden flare of hope.

Merlin moves until he is kneeling at Harry’s feet. He grabs both of Harry’s hands and says, “Harry. Look at me.” Merlin’s face is terribly kind. “We recovered Eggsy’s body from Coimbra.”

Harry snatches his hands back. “Don’t be ridiculous. Eggsy is sleeping upstairs.”

Wordlessly, Merlin retrieves a file. Harry opens it and sees _Autopsy File: Agent Galahad_. Eggsy’s face, cold and blue and empty, stares up at him. Harry can’t breathe, his eyes catch and stutter over _fatal_ and _bullet wounds: 18_. The truth presses down and threatens to drown him under its immense unforgiving inevitability.

“No.” Harry stumbles upstairs and pushes open the door of the guest bedroom. Eggsy was curled up beneath the duvet, face flushed slightly from the heat of his blankets. Harry breathes in Eggsy’s scent and relaxes.

“See?” he tells Merlin, but Merlin doesn’t look in the room. Merlin looks at Harry with a terrible finality in his eyes.

**

Only three people were recorded to have survived the death of their soulmate. Two turned into violent psychopaths and had a collective body count in the hundreds. The third was Harry Hart. 

Merlin _ran_ when Harry screamed. In his youth, he had hunted rabbits. They had screamed the same way when he shot them, screamed as if they couldn’t believe they were shot, that they were dying.

Harry’s eyes had been wild, and he was screaming orders, barely coherent. He was crying, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. Harry spasmed, and his left hand involuntarily reached for his heart.

Merlin reacted without thinking and slammed open the emergency Medi-kit stashed under Arthur’s desk. He injected a syringe of blessed water right above Harry’s heart.

In retrospect, saving Harry was perhaps the worst thing he could have done.

**

They strip Harry of his title, his access to tech, and install him in a quiet cottage in Sussex. His neighbors look at him with pity and skirt around him at the market. 

Eggsy spends his days alternatively napping or reading through the entirety of Harry’s pulp fiction collection.

Their days are languorous, golden, like honey in full sunlight. But no matter how long Harry soaks in the summer sun, he can’t get warm.

He wakes up to a gentle tugging on his bond, and Eggsy blocking out the sun.

Eggsy smiles, full of warmth. “Hey Harry.”

Harry smiles back, involuntary. The sunlight catches the wheat highlights of Eggsy’s hair.

Eggsy extends a hand, beckons, and says, “Join me.”

Harry feels his bond glowing back to life with every step he takes.

_Harry Hart: 10 th September 1960  - 29th July 2031_


End file.
